Saw: The Torturers' Apprentice
by Jarryl
Summary: Victor, a human trafficker, awakens to find himself in a wide awake nightmare. He must play a twisted game to survive, and before the night is out, he will come face to face with the many facets of his own evil. But can he learn his lesson in time?


Saw: The Torturers' Apprentice

By Jarryl Edwards

I

Victor awoke slowly, his beady eyes trying desperately to find their focus. As the fog lifted from his mind, the moment of panic that had preceded his drug-induced slumber re-instilled itself, and Victor tried to lurch forward, away from the perceived danger. His throat closed, choking him momentarily, as his flab-laden neck was immediately stop short by something around it. Victors' hands rushed to his neck, only to find that it was encased in some form of metal shackle. As his hands scurried about his immense form, trying desperately to relay information on his predicament to his brain, Victor found his vision completely cleared, showing him a terrible sight. He had been drugged, this he already knew. The last thing he remembered before waking up was the feeling of a hypodermic needle being slid in to his fleshy arm from behind. But the memory faded quickly as the reality of his current situation unfolded before him.

He had been stripped nearly naked, save for his boxers, which were beginning to moisten with perspiration. And he had been restrained into place in a half-sitting half-kneeling position in a most sinister looking apparatus. Made completely out of weathered metal, the device bore a resemblance to the kneeling chairs commonly associated with Japanese offices. But the resemblance was in general form alone, with its high back going above his head, a tilted-downward platform on which his ample backside now resided, and an additional angled platform in front of each of his calves. But here the similarity ended. A thick metal strap circled his waist, hidden beneath his inordinately massive stomach, securing him tightly to the device. A similar band went around his neck, limiting the motion to his head, and his legs were equally bound to the platforms beneath.

Victor found himself further confused by the surroundings he found, as his eyes darted about the room, searching for answers. The room was large and barren with brick walls and a high ceiling. The devise he was strapped to seemed to rest on a slightly raised round metal platform approximately two feet in diameter in the middle of the room, and was circled with three sets of portable double work lights. The lights shone brightly on him, as though he were center stage at some macabre performance act. To his immediate right, easily within arms reach, was what appeared to be an old school desk, or perhaps a podium, with a lift-up top. Another such podium stood to his left. In front of him was a simple table on which sat a television. And on the floor directly in front of the table was what looked liked a large LED sign. Currently it displayed the number "321.8". Wires ran from the readout to the disc on which his captivity chair stood.

Victors' breathing became ragged as panic crept into his mind. He struggled against his restraints with all the strength his great size afforded him but to no avail. He began to wonder who was responsible for putting him in this awful place. Local law enforcement? INTERPOL? Or perhaps one of his competitors was to blame. His ragged breather turned to pitiful whimpers, and soon turned into a scream for mercy.

"HEEEEEEELP MEEEEE!"

Suddenly the TV in front of him snapped into life, filling with static. Victor caught his breath and stared at the set. Just before the image changed, his eyes widened as his memory suddenly called forward a story from the papers that seemed eerily familiar to his situation. Something he'd read about happening to other people in recent months. Something from which few escaped alive.

As if to confirm this, the image of electronic snow blinked to an image that made Victors' breath catch in his shackled throat. His eyes refused to blink as they stared into the dead black eyes of the visage on the screen. Yes, Victor had seen those eyes before, in the papers and on television. Those terrible eyes with their red irises that matched the red swirls painted on those ghost-white cheeks. Those eyes, set deep back in that oddly angled wooden face which almost seemed to smirk at him. And before the recording of Billy the Puppet began speaking, the horror of the reality blazed its way into Victors' mind. No, it wasn't INTERPOL who'd done this to him. Or one his rivals.

Victor was a prisoner of the infamous serial killer, Jigsaw.

As the realization set in, filling Victor with a cold dread, Billy began speaking. His artificially low base voice chilling Victor to his core.

"Hello Victor. For most of your life, you have profited greatly from inflicting immeasurable suffering on others. You use everything from deception to threats to lure the innocent into your trap. Then you subject your victims to countless atrocities of rape and forced labor, slowly killing their souls over the years before their bodies succumb to the torments. Some call you a human trafficker. Others label you a pimp, or slave master, or even a monster. I call you unworthy of the body you possess. And I call you unworthy of membership in the human race. And now I offer you the chance to redeem yourself. By playing a game."

Victors' eyes were wide, refusing to blink, as the accusations were flung at him. The fear he felt mixed with anger as his ego tried to overcome the sense of helplessness.

'Who does this piece of shit think he is', a small voice in the back of his mind whispered, 'thinking he can pass judgment over me'. As his emotions swirled in his brain, fighting to dominate, Billy continued his spiel.

"Since you have been here, you've been breathing in a toxic agent. There is a vial of antidote located in the box next to the door leading out. The device you're strapped to is basically a scale. The restraints will release if the weight on it should drop below 300 pounds. But as you can see from the readout, you're a little over that. The tools to remedy this are in the podium on your right. Take a look."

Victor looked at the podium with terror in full ascendancy. What horrors waited within? His arm slowly reached out and shaking chubby fingers grasped the lip of the lid. He slowly lifted the lid up, and his terror turned to despair as he viewed the instruments within.

Scalpels. Carving knives. A straight razor. The sight of these and other various cutting implements neatly laid out within the podium box attacked Victors' senses relentlessly. All the strength left his hand, and he involuntarily released the lid which slammed shut, covering the horror within. A small whimper escaped his lips. Victor now understood the rules of the game.

He would have to cut into himself.

The helpless brute turned his head away from the podium, only to be greeted unpleasantly by the sight of the second podium. His already rapidly beating heart picked up a few paces as the onslaught to his senses continued by this new unknown terror. What lay beneath THAT lid? More vicious implements with which his captor would have him slice into his obese frame? His question was quickly answered as his attention was brought back to Billy's instructions.

"Of course these tools would have the effect of causing a great deal of blood loss," the puppet said almost mockingly, "but don't worry. I've left you a way to deal with that too. The podium on your left. See for yourself."

Victors' left hand shot out from him seemingly of its own accord and grasped the lid of the second podium. Victor wanted, needed to know what lay inside. Something to prevent death by blood loss. But what? Bandages? Anti-coagulant? A needle and thread, perhaps. But the devastator of lives was not so fortunate, and Jigsaw not so merciful.

His hand opened the lid, and Victor nearly began hyperventilating at the grisly devise within. To prevent Victor from bleeding to death, Jigsaw had welded a small metal plate to the heating element of a portable electric stove. Already the coil, and the square of metal attached to it, glowed a dull red.

"You have forced so many others to have there flesh torn at mercilessly for your benefit," Billy accused him. "Will you now demand the same of yourself? Can you endure the suffering you inflict on the innocent in order to save your own life? Live or die, Victor. Make your choice. Let the game begin."

As the screen snapped into snow again, and then blinked off, the truth set in. Victor felt the isolation of this awful place closing in on him. But instead of panicking, the anger he'd began to feel before once again crept into Victor, this time overwhelming him with rage.

"You son of a bitch!" Victor let his rage fly out into the empty room. "Who the hell do you think you are?! Do you know who I am?! Do you have any idea what I can DO TO YOU?!! If you think what I did to those pathetic little whores was bad, just wait till I get my hands on YOU!!"

With his fury vented futilely, the victimizer of countless women and children suddenly discovered that his imminent demise would not be the only motivation he had to complete his task. His great form arched forward suddenly, straining against his restraints as 50,000 volts of electricity suddenly coursed from the chair into his body. His nerves came alive with pain, and he tried to cry out through gritted teeth. The shock stopped as quickly as it had started, and Victor reeled from the sudden lapse of sensation. His mind driven half insane by all he had experienced in the last few moments, Victor did the only thing he had left to do. He screamed. A wail of the damned, so intense it tore at his throat.

The scream seemed to go on forever, until a second jolt shocked him out of his hysteria. And with his pulse racing, Victors' sweat drenched hand reached out and flipped open the lid of the right podium. It reached in and pulled out one of the carving knives. A triangular blade twelve inches in length with a razor honed edged, the knife glinted menacingly in the harsh light of the work lamps. Victors' eyes went from the knife to his left flank, bulging so wide they threatened to pop right out of their sockets.

And with a scream of determination, Victor plunged the knife into the fatty tissue of his tremendous love handle.

Time itself seemed to lose all meaning, and the room blurred out of sight as the pain shot up his nervous system and slammed into Victors' brain. He tried to scream, but the experience was so intense that his breath caught in the middle of his throat, making his cry silent. Slowly, his eyes crept over to see the wound he had put in himself. Blood flowed freely from the wound, and Victor started trembling at the sight of the blade buried in his flesh. Though he could not see it, he knew that the knife had gone all the way through. And though his mind was half gone, still he knew what he would have to do.

As the pain slowly subsided, the killer of souls began panting quickly, his every exhale a slight wail. He gritted his teeth, and with what strength he could muster, twisted the tool in his hand. Anguish racked his system again as the blade twisted through the fatty tissue of his side, until the sharp edge of the blade faced left, out from him. Victor suddenly screamed, half out of desperation, and half in expectation of what he was about to subject himself to.

As though it had once again developed cognitive abilities separate from his own, Victors' left hand suddenly shot straight out from his side, taking the knife with it. A rather respectable splash of blood flew across the room, splattering on the wall near the door. Unable to deal with the torturous agony, Victors' massive frame went limp. He dropped the knife and sat, panting in despair.

With what he thought would be the hard part over, Victor looked down at the gash in his side. His thick blood trickled from the wound and dripped slowly onto the dirty hardwood floor beneath. His hand found its way to the wound and began lightly pressing the area around. As he did, the blood flow was suddenly stopped short by an egress of fat from beneath. Victor watched with a mix of desperation and a slight bit of hope as the adipose tissue slowly sloshed out from him and splattered onto the floor. He pressed down harder, yelping from the discomfort, but was reward by a rather respectable glob of fat exiting his rotund body. The glob was followed almost immediately by a not so comforting splash of blood.

Victors' eyes went wide as he saw the viscous red fluid spewing from his wound. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Jigsaws' words began to taunt him again. Anger found its way back into his heart. His muscles tensed up, his teeth gritted, and he shot a defiant glare at the now blank television screen.

"FUCK THIS!!"

With his will reasserted, the obese monster lunged his bloody coated hand into the podium on the left. He yanked out the hot iron with a vengeance, and without hesitation slammed the glowing metal onto the cut.

Because of the trauma he had suffered in the last few minutes of his life, his brain was so overwhelmed that at first, he didn't even recognize the sensation he'd just inflicted upon his mutilated form. But though the moment between the iron contacting his flesh and the feeling of the experience seemed to stretch, too soon, it was over. And the pain slammed into him like a shotgun blast to the face. His cry was absolutely deafening as he jerked the offending instrument from his side. The scream lingered, threatening to tear his vocal cords asunder and rob him of his last breath. Finally, when he could scream no more, Victor inhaled and held the precious oxygen as the pain subsided. He looked down to see the result of his labors.

Where once there had been a great mass of skin and fat. Now there was a quivering husk. Seared a shade of purple so deep, it looked black in the poor lighting. The cut had been sealed, and tiny bubbles of gas and skin had formed and hardened all about the wound. Slight curls of smoke emanated from the burn, teasing Victors' nostrils with the aroma of his own cooked flesh. On the floor beneath, the deposit of fat was sitting, stewing in a bile of oil and blood. It shifted slowly, settling into its new environment. Victor slowly turned his head to look at the digital readout of the scale. He was almost too afraid to look, but he had to know the fruits of his labor.

317.4

The trafficker of slaves let out another small whimper. With all his hideous labor, he had only managed to relieve himself of a little over 4 pounds. As his senses reasserted themselves, Victor suddenly realized that not all the weight loss had been accomplished. A slimy coldness on the back of his thighs surprised him, and his suspicions as to the nature of this were confirmed by a rather unpleasant odor that hadn't been there before.

In one respect that the subject was unaware of, the conductor of this vicious experiment had shown some semblance of mercy. The platform on which the chair seemed to sit was not part of the device. If he could've investigated, Victor would've found that the thick iron piece that formed the principal support of the device actually went through the disc to the scale below. The disc was more like an apron, insuring that every piece the subject cut from himself counted. So in fact, part of the weight Victor had just lost was the contents of his bowels, now sitting in a steaming pile directly beneath.

But Victor was unaware of this. And so he mistakenly believed that the loss was all flesh. He believed it was only a matter of about eight more lacerations to freedom, when in fact the number was in the double digits. And to make matters worse, his host's patience, as well as his small measure of mercy was suddenly demonstrated to be all used up.

The victimizer turned victim was jolted out of his momentary sense of elation as another arc of electricity coursed from the horrible restraint into his traumatized body. The seared gash in his side, momentarily re-cooked, began to emit more curls of smoke. The acrid smell of his burnt tissues was almost a relief, as it interfered with the odors left by his excretions. When the electric shock subsided, Victor came to the realization that unless he got himself out of this unfathomable place, Jigsaw would give him no rest. The tortures wouldn't cease until he was dead.

With this thought echoing in his mind, Victor suddenly found himself in the situation that he had forced so many others into for his own gain. Trapped, exploited, victimized, with all hope slipping away, the once proud master of cruelties began to do something he had never done before. Something that had given him sick pleasure when his unfortunate victims did it.

Victor began to weep.

Tears slowly rolled down his fat checks, and from his ravage throat came another treat for his tormentor. As the broken spirit that had been Victor gave in to childlike crying, he cried out from mercy.

"Pleeeeease! I can't," he cried out, followed by a whispered, "I can't take anymore".

His breakdown was interrupted by another electric shock

"STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!"

Another shock, and his cries became screams. As he did, his right hand wound its way into the podium and pulled out a straight razor. He started running the broadside of the blade up and down his stomach, almost as though he were trying to fan the fat off of himself. The blade started pressing in, making the skin turn red, and finally, the fanning turned to hacking. And the blood began to flow.

For over an hour, Victor put himself through his own personal hell. His immense form became a patchwork of scalded wounds. His mind, driven to the brink of insanity, was barely registering the pain. And as he went about his grisly task, the counter slowly, ever so slowly, dropped.

316.7, 314.9, 312, 310.1, and so on.

Finally, at long last, a fist-sized glob of fat joined the mounds already scattered on the floor, and the counter read 299.2. There was a clanking of gears, and the restraints slammed open. His hands dropped the instruments they held, and the mutilated body of Victor the human trafficker fell forward and crashed onto the floor. Blood spurted from the final gash that had freed him, and Victor dragged himself over to where the cauterizing tool lay in a pile of flesh, cooking it. He grabbed the tool, flipped over onto his back, and mechanically applied the tissue-caked plate to his skin. He had long stopped screaming, and instead gritted his teeth and bore the pain. The final cut sealed, Victor laid surrounded by piles of himself. Exhausted, racked with pain, tormented beyond comprehension, but alive.

The epitome of inhumanity had accomplished a great feat. He had been subject to a Jigsaw test and survived. But no sense of accomplishment swelled within his dark soul. His chest gasped for air, but did not swell with pride. And as his senses began to return, Victor remembered the poison. He slowly craned his neck over and looked with bloodshot eyes towards the door. As promised, a small metal box sat on a low table by the portal to the chamber of horror. Victor tried to roll over to crawl to the table, but his butchered midsection wouldn't tolerate the pain. He began to comprehend the pain as he got onto his hands and knees. No. No more pain for Victor. His resolve returned, and his mouth twisted into a cruel silence, as his mind began to ponder the atrocities he would perform on any in his path, vengeance for the wide awake nightmare he had just endured.

Victor crawled slowly over to the table. He reached up desperately, straining to grab the box. When the tips of his fingers found the top of the table, he lost his strength, bring the table, and the box crashing down on him. The box landed upright, its lid tossed back. Victor crawled over as fast as he could, anxious to cure himself of the venom coursing through him. But when he reached the box, his desperation turned to despair.

There was no antidote inside. No pill, no needle, no medicine of any form. All that lay waiting for him was a small micro cassette player.

Jigsaw had lied to him.

Victor was now sure he would die in this room. His captor had never intended to allow him to survive. This wasn't a test. It was a trap. Designed not to teach him a lesson, but to exact punishment upon him. To exact the proverbial, and almost literal, pound of flesh for his crimes. As these thoughts circled around his mind, Victor rolled over and gave in to the finality of his predicament.

"Oh, god," Victor whined. "It's not fair! I won!"

For no reason that he could comprehend, he reached in with his blood soaked hand and grabbed the player. He was sure he knew what was on it. Sure that Jigsaw was going to gloat over putting him through all that for nothing. He pressed the play button…

And found that he was wrong.

"Hello Victor, if you're hearing this, then you've passed the test and started on the road to redemption. It's a hard road to travel, isn't it? You have to feel everything that you've done to reach your destination. And that is why there is no antidote. I don't want to kill you, Victor. I want to teach you. Your first lesson was in pain. This lesson is about deception. You deceive your victims to lure them in. Promise them prosperity and joy, but deliver only cruelty and pain. And know you've received the same. You have been deceived, Victor.

There is no antidote, because there is no toxin. Your life was never in eminent danger. You could've sat there, receiving the occasional shock, and tried to break the restraints. You might have even succeeded. But you didn't. Do you begin to see now the error of your ways? Can you feel the trauma of those you've wronged? I don't think so. At least not yet. But I assure you, Victor, before you leave this place, you will.

This was only the first test for you, Victor. Beyond that door lies more. Beyond that door, you will come face to face with your own evil. And you will face it in its entirety. And you will learn to value the lives of others. Because if you don't then this place will become your tomb.

Can you survive? Can you learn compassion, mercy, and appreciation for the lives others?

Game over, Victor. Now, the REAL test begins."

Victor managed to stay alert just long enough to press the stop button on the recorder. Then he passed out.

II

_Where was that little piece of slash? Victor was getting tired of this. The deal had been clear. One hour. And here she was, almost 20 minutes over. The human trafficker glared up at the window of the apartment where he had left her. Where he had placed her in the anything but tender care of a rather unappealing man with a sour look of vicious intention. Not that such things mattered. As long as they paid the fees and returned the little whores in one piece, Victor paid no mind to what happened. But this was becoming intolerable. The girl was a fresh piece, just sent over from the Ukraine. 16 years old, with a tight figure, and a sweet face that made all her clients want to corrupt her._

_Victor had had enough of this. He pulled out his silenced Beretta and tucked it into its holster under his flabby left arm. With a grunt befitting a man of his size, he opened the door of his SUV and climbed out into the night air. The chill of the late hour assaulted his clammy skin, and his pallid complexion tightened into one of frustration. As if it weren't bad enough that he had to go retrieve his property, the apartment was on the fourth floor of a building without an elevator. He'd already had to make the trek up to the destination once in order to present the client with the merchandise and receive payment._

_The apartment complex was a small one, only about one hundred units in an enclosed building. The narrow halls of the floors were poorly lit with failing florescent lights, and the stairways on wither end were even worse with their recessed yellow bulbs on ever floor. The front entrance had two doors to get in, an outer and an inner, for security. Anybody could enter the first set of doors, but the second took a combination on the electronic keypad seated in the wall. Victor punched in the four digit code, and was rewarded with the telltale buzz of the inner door unlocking. He entered and looked at the daunting stairway. With a sigh of exasperation, he began lugging his hefty girth up the narrow steps._

_Breathing a bit heavily, Victor finally reached the top floor of the dilapidated building. He allowed himself a moment to catch his breath, and then opened the door that led to the apartments. He walked slowly down the hall, allowing himself time to completely gain his composure. His hand slowly went inside his coat to rest on the grip of his sidearm as he approached the door leading to the home of his latest client. Pausing long enough to take one last deep breath, Victor slowly knocked on the door. The seconds stretched out as no answer came from within. Not even a sound to indicate life emanated from within._

_"My friend," Victor called out, "your time is up. Open the door."_

_He waited a little longer. Still no answer. The peddler of flesh tightened his grip on the pistol, half drawing it out. His empty hand wrapped around the doorknob and slowly turned it. The door opened freely._

_The apartment was decently furnished for the neighborhood it was in. Leather couch, plasma TV, glass top coffee table. Victor had been relatively surprised when he'd first come here to drop off the merchandise. Now, as he slowly entered, a grip of apprehension tightened around his throat as the idea occurred to him that something was very wrong here. His eyes started darting around the room, as he began contemplating the situation. It suddenly occurred to him that this could be a sting. As the image of a dozen law enforcement officers waiting to pounce on him formed in his mind, Victor began to sweat. He pulled his gun out and slowly began to back out. The door slammed shut behind him. His eyes went wide as the paralyzing sensation of fear overtook him. Then he felt a presence rush up behind him. He started to turn around, but a sharp prick in his arm distracted him._

_Then the world went dark._

Victor awoke from his memory to be reminded of the nightmare he was in. He was still on the floor of the dark room, the only light still coming from the work lights pointed at the horrid chair he'd escaped from only moments ago. Or was it hours ago? Victor had no way of knowing how long he'd been out. As his senses returned, he decided it didn't matter. He had to get out of this place. But the tape had told him that his test was only beginning. But what more could Jigsaw do to him?

Victor slowly climbed to his feet, his every move an excruciatingly painful experience. As he swung his right leg out from under him, he saw that a strange device was attached to his ankle. Victor began examining it. Whatever it was, it had started out as an iron shackle. It had a rather sturdy looking lock on it, and a strange dull silver box attached to the outside. Victor couldn't figure out its purpose. There was no chain on it. In fact, he could see two weld points where the loop that connected to a chain should've been. It occurred to him that the device could be for administering more electric further occurred to him that if that was the case, he'd find out soon enough.

Finally standing fully erect, Victor limped his mutilated form over to the door. To his surprise, the door opened. It led to a sparsely lit hallway flanked by several doors on either side. Victor took a moment to peer in the windows set in each door as he slowly progressed down the hall. Each window showed only darkness beyond.

As he lumbered down the corridor, it quickly became obvious to Victor that he must be in a hospital. One that had been shut down for quite a while. Here was a gurney, its legs slightly bent and its surface scarred black from rust and years of neglect. And here was a utility cart, covered in cobwebs and a thin layer of dust. Further down, a wheelchair in a similar state of decay.

Almost at the end of the hallway, a large pair of doors caught Victors' attention. It wasn't the doors themselves that caught the attention of his weary eyes, it was the writing upon them. Obviously this was the door to his next test. He read the ominous message a few more times, and then decided to move on.

"I'm not playing your games," he mumbled defiantly. He moved all the way to the end of the hall, into the reception area, looking for an exit.

After trying every possible portal out of this hell on earth, Victor found that he was not dealing with the rank amateur he had hoped his captor to be. The elevators were completely non functional, and all doors marked stairs were sealed shut. He tried desperately to work the handle on the last door, and then let out a futile cry of defeat. His head turned and his eyes went down the hall, to where that foreboding message on the double doors was waiting. He shook his head and slowly turned, heading back to where he now knew he had no choice but to go.

Again, his gaze went over that strange set of words, wondering what they signified, what anguish lay beyond those double doors.

THE NECESSITY OF COMPASSION

Since when was compassion a necessary thing? It had never served him before. In fact, Victor found his life would not be nearly as opulent and luxurious as it was if he had not long ago forsaken it as a frivolous and impeding sense. But it didn't matter. Whatever lay beyond this strange message scrawled in dark red paint, it would require the trafficker to do something that he had spent a lifetime sneering at. Pausing just long enough to let a deep breath fill his lungs, Victor pushed his way through the door.

The metallic snap of a pin being released from its housing caused Victors' head to jerk to the side. Light suddenly flooded the room and a small metal pin rebounded off the door, and then hung there, suspended by the small wire. Victor immediately realized that in walking in, he'd set something off. He looked around the room, and could barely comprehend what was there.

First there was the smell. A putrid stench so thick and cloying, it dwarfed the odors that Victor had produced in that horrible chair only a little time ago. If he had any food in his stomach, it surely would have left Victor the same way it had entered. Instead he simply dry heaved as he tried to acclimate to the noxious air.

Somewhere, a motor started up, filling the room with the sound of its wheels turning as it fulfilled its purpose. Directly in front of him, a small table with a tape recorder stood and beyond that, a massive tarp had been laid out neatly on the floor, from one wall to the other and extending about three feet beyond the table. But that was not the most amazing thing. On the other end of the room stood what appeared to be a large metal cage that stretched all the way up to the ceiling. The cage was cylindrical shaped, and was incased in transparent heavy duty plastic. The door on the front had been secured with a rather heavy padlock. And inside stood Natalie, the sweet 16 year old Ukrainian girl who he had gone searching for just before he'd been brought to this place. She was slightly bowed over, and strapped to her back was a large metal bowl, like the ones children used to go down snowy hills. Her hands were strapped to either end of the disk, giving her an appearance reminiscent of the statue of Atlas, holding up the globe on his back.

She looked at Victor now with that same look that she and so many others had given him. A look that conveyed anger, desperation, but mostly terror. She was kneeling on the floor of the cage, her lower legs obscured from view by the thick metal frame of her enclosure. Her thin form had been stripped naked, save for a thick black band that wound around her neck.

Desperate to be free from his captivity, Victor turned his attention to the tape recorder. His blood smeared hands closed around it, and he reluctantly pressed the play button.

"Hello, Victor. As a human trafficker, you've made a life out of disregarding the humanity of others. And in so doing, you've gotten rid of the humanity within yourself. That's why you're here. To find that lost sense of soul. To learn to see the value in others. To accomplish that, I've taken away your ability to harm others. In this place, you can only bring misfortune to yourself.

Before you stands a victim of your evil. She is in a very bad situation. In a few moments she will find herself having to take the weight of so much suffering onto her shoulders, just as she did when she met you. But this time, you will have to relieve her of her burden.

Written on the back of her neck is the combination to the lock on the door leading to freedom. Find the key that will free her, and free yourself in the process. Fail to do so, and your hardship continues. To find the key, first lift up the tarp. Then you will have to degrade yourself by wallowing in absolute filth, just as you did to her."

A loud noise caught Victors' notice, and he looked up to see what looked like a large metal ball about the size of a basketball come out of a hole in the ceiling above the cage, and come slamming down onto the disc attached to the Natalie. She screamed out in shock and pain, audible through the air holes that had been drilled in the plastic right below the ceiling. She stood up to better heft the weight.

"You'd better hurry Victor. The floor beneath her is just a grate. And neither of you have much time."

The voice on the tape stopped as Victor came to comprehend the idea of this test. For the first time, he noticed two doors on either side of the room. One was like that on a bank vault, with a combination wheel in the center of it. The other was an ordinary door. His eyes shot back to rest on the tarp. The awful smell seemed to be coming from beneath. A trembling hand reached down and ripped the sheet off, uncovering the "filth" that lay beneath.

The floor had been ripped up crudely, and there in the hole lay the most disgusting thing Victor had ever had the misfortune of laying his eyes on.

Jigsaw had cut the top off a large septic tank filled with human waste, and placed it in the hole.

Victors' eyes went wide as he looked upon the small swamp of loathsomeness in front of him. Froth and fecal matter slowly moved over the surface of the scummy liquid that filled the tank nearly to the brim. Victors' legs suddenly gave out, and he sunk to his knees, recoiling in utter revulsion at what he was being made to do. He wouldn't even be able to make it to the other side of the room where the doors were without crossing this moat from hell. And somewhere on the bottom was the key to Natalie's freedom, and subsequently, his own.

Another metal sphere dropped from the ceiling and crashed onto Natalie, and again she cried out. Victor looked up from where he was whining on the floor and saw the progression of things. If he didn't act, Natalie would be crushed through the grate beneath her, and he would have no way out, unless he crossed the moat and went on to more of Jigsaws' insidious tests.

Victor slowly inched over to peer into the moat, and instantly recoiled, slamming into the door behind him. He cursed Jigsaw, and his twisted sense of humor. Sure he had put this girl and several others through a similar hell, forcing them to submit to whatever his clients wished to do to them. But surely that wasn't enough to warrant this, was it? Sure some of his clients had done gross things to his whores, from spitting on them to defecating in their mouths, but that didn't mean he should have to suffer like this. After all, he'd already gone through a rather torturous ordeal. This was just over the line barbarism.

As these thoughts finished circling Victors' mind, another sphere plummeted down onto Natalie, who fell to her knees from the horrific weight. She cried out again, glaring daggers into Victor. This time her scream didn't taper out, but instead grew into a wail of the damned. Victor began to scream in unison, trying to convey to her some of the horror that faced him. In his own twisted, half crazed way, he was trying to elicit sympathy from her.

"Shut up you little bitch!"

Naturally, his demands went unheeded. Instead her cries of desperation got loader, nearly drowning out the unseen machinery that was dropping the weights on her. Victor began shaking with fury as he slowly got to his feet. He walked over to the edge of the vile moat. His ravaged throat let out a hate filled wail as he stared right back at Natalie with hatred. Hatred for what he had to do for her. Hatred for her allowing herself to be put in this position. Hatred for her very existence.

Victor lifted his foot over the edge, and in the next instant felt himself calf-deep in human waste. The impact of his body in the filth caused it to splash him up to his neck, and Victor instinctively looked straight up and clamped his mouth shut tight, lest some of this ice cold sludge find its way into his gullet. His feet hit the bottom of the tank almost at the exact same instant that another ball came down on top of Natalie. He shot her a glance to make sure she hadn't yet become so much offal beneath the grate. She hadn't, but she had sunk down even more, her chest now resting on her knees. Victor looked around the moat. Thankfully, it wasn't as deep as he'd imagined it would be. His feet began scooting along the bottom, probing for the key. The stench released from the sludge being moved around was almost unbearable. Still he pressed on.

As yet another weight slammed home, Victors' probing toes found the key. Natalie's' cries went up an octave, indicating Victor that she must have been pressed down deep enough to begin cutting into her flesh. He couldn't have long. He looked down at the spot where his calf disappeared beneath the surface. It suddenly occurred to him that he was going to have to put his arm into the muck in order to retrieve the key. His hand hovered over the surface, vibrating rapidly in futile denial of what the next step would be. He looked over at Natalie in her cage writhing in anguish from the ordeal she was caught in. And then Victor saw the true extent of the cruelty his tormentor was capable of.

Ball after ball started falling from the hole in rapid succession. Natalie's cries were cut short as she was pounded down into oblivion. Victor cried out in horror as gristle and gore began to splash onto the heavy plastic tube covering the cage. Natalie's screams turned to a horrid gurgling, and then was suddenly silenced.

Desperate instinct took over, and Victor's hand plunged into the putrid swamp of human waste. His hand sloshed past shapes that disintegrated from his touch and wrapped round the tiny piece of metal. He brought up his hand and lumbered over the side, onto the slick linoleum tile.

Leaving a trail of oily dark liquid behind him, Victor crawled over to the cage where all action had come to a halt. The unseen motors wound down and the progression of weights stopped. Bright red material flowed slowly down the inside of the plastic tube. The tortured torturer reached out his empty hand to the cage, and with his other, held up the key. Almost as if he was trying to give it as an offering to some unseen deity. But it was no use. He knew he was too late. He would have no easement from this place now. And somewhere beyond the unlocked door to his right, he knew another test awaited him. What rigors he would be put through next, he could hardly imagine. For the first time since his awakening, Victor realized there was a very real possibility that he would die here. And as that thought grew until it eventually filled his mind, Victor did something he hadn't done since he was too young to remember. He wept.

III

His composure regained, Victor slowly got to his feet and looked at the unlocked door in front of him. At least, it appeared to be unlocked. Victor reached out a hand covered in dried waste from his previous ordeal and slowly tried the knob. It turned easily. Moving like an automaton, the enslaver of innocence plodded down the hall beyond. His own blood, long dried up, started flecking off, leaving a trailed of red speckled filth in his wake.

It wasn't long before he came to the door that no doubt led to his next tribulation. He gazed upon the words painted on the door, which according to the sign to the side, had once been a door to a maternity room. In its day, practically everyone who had walked through this door had done so with a sense of unbridle joy and hope for the new life that awaited them within. Eager faced and bright eyed, new parents, grandparents, siblings, and the like had rushed through this door with vigor and enthusiasm to behold the newest addition to there family and the human race.

Now the door, like the building itself, was old and dilapidated. No light shown from beyond the small window. And the joy had long gone with the families, and the infants they came to revere. And Victor felt no joy, no hope. Only a sense of absolute despair mixed with an impending dread. For to Victor, this was no maternity wing door, this was a door that had a new designation.

THE SENSATION OF HELPLESSNESS

What small bit of reason still lingered in Victor's brain couldn't help but find a slight amusement in this message. As though he didn't already feel that sensation. But there was no use in pondering the message. Time to face his test. Victor took a deep breath to steel his ragged nerves, pushed open the door and walked in.

No lights sprang on, no machines clicked to life. Nothing. For the briefest of moments, Victor wondered if that was the point of the test. Was this feeling of impending dread what his captor was going for? Could this test really be as simple as standing in the dark and feeling helpless, unsure, and terrified? But this idea was shattered almost as quickly as it came as Victor's hand instinctually found the light switch.

As the florescent lights overhead flooded the room with pale illumination, Victor could see the area designated for the new infants. A small room encased by large glass windows so the people could see their new family members as the nurses tended to them. But it was all too easy to see that the nursery was now meant for something else. The picture window was no enclosed from both sides by heavy wrought iron bars. Holes had been drilled in the window. The waist high wall below the window, which had originally only been a few inches thick, had been reinforced by concrete bricks that stretched out beyond the window to almost a foot and a half short of the opposing wall. Where the bricks ended, mesh fencing had been placed from floor to ceiling, creating a cage within the enclosure. A hole had been drilled in the reinforced wall very close to the floor, creating a tunnel from where Victor now stood, through the bricks, and emptying out into the cage within. A heavy chain snaked out from the tunnel, and rested casually on the floor with a small white piece of paper attached to the end. Another tape recorder hung ominously from the ceiling right in front of Victor. He grabbed it and pressed play.

"So what have you learned so far, trafficker? Have you learned the pain of your victims? Have you learned the importance of compassion? I certainly hope so. Because you cannot instill what you do not possess. And to pass this test, you will have to convince another to suffer for you. And you will not be able to do this in you're usual method, with trickery and violence. In this test you are as helpless as those you've wronged, and now like them, you will have to find a way to plea for your salvation.

In the cage beyond the glass is a man you may recognize. His name is Brad Callo. And he is the man you last sold the services of Natalie to. You did this without any concern for her well being. But you would've surely been disgusted and outraged by what he did to her. And he holds the key out of here. All you have to do is convince him to crawl through the tunnel so that you can retrieve the key. But you may find it difficult as I've taken the liberty of deafening him to your pleas, just as you are to the pleas of your victims."

The tape ran out and Victor shut it off. He was completely perplexed. There was no one in the cage. Then it occurred to him that if Brad was there, he must be lying on the floor, blocked from eyesight by the wall of bricks. He banged on the glass, calling out to the man who was supposedly there. No effect. He hunched over and peered through the tunnel. The first thing he noticed was the razor wire that the tunnel had been lined with.

"So that's what you meant," he said quietly referring to the message on the tape that he'd have to get someone else to suffer for him. Then he saw the body.

He could only see a bit of the lower back, but there was no doubt that this was indeed Brad Callo, the last man he'd talked to before waking up in this place. He remembered the ugly leer in the eyes of Brad as he'd accepted the wad of crumpled bills from him, and the shoved Natalie into his apartment.

The heavy chain suddenly caught his eye. It seemed to reach all the way to Callo. Was he supposed to wake him with it? He picked up the note attached to the chain and read it. Nothing cryptic here. Just a simple, somber warning.

**Do not use this chain to compel him through the tunnel.**

Victor was distracted from the note by the sudden groaning from the other side of the tunnel. His former client was waking up. Victor stood up and started banging on the window, goading him awake. But as Brad stood up, Victor could see what Jigsaw had meant when he'd said that Brad was deafened to his pleas.

Two bloody messes now sat where once Brad's ears had been. Jigsaw had literally deafened him.

Panic now set in as Victor realized that Brad couldn't hear him. How was he supposed to plea for his life if the man couldn't hear it? This was insane!

Brad was coming more fully awake. His reaction was similar to Victor's when he'd been in that chair only a little while ago. Confusion, panic, terror, the stark realization of imminent danger to his well being. His hands flew up to where his ears should've been, and immediately pulled them away as they came into contact with sticky mess. He stared at the bloodstains on his hands in absolute horror. Then, as he looked around as if for understanding, he caught sight of Victor.

The man was an absolute mess. Dressed only in his boxers, which were stained beyond recognition of there original color, the man was covered with all manner of filth. His once immense gut looked as though it had been forcibly emaciated. Doughy flaps hang here and there, barely covering the scars of his initial test. Dried blood and what looked like mud was splattered all over him.

"What have you done to me?!"

Although Brad couldn't hear himself, a realization that caused him to cry out even louder, Victor could hear him just fine. Despite his haggard appearance, Brad thought Victor was responsible for doing this to him. Victor started shaking his head, screaming denials of any involvement. He pounded on the double-paned glass, desperate to catch the attention of his fellow captive. He stopped suddenly as Brad turned around in a panic. There, on the back of his neck, just below the hairline, was a key.

Victor began pounding on the glass with a renewed vigor. When Brad turned back around to face him, he began gesturing frantically, pointing at Brad's neck. Brad just stared at him in complete confusion. Victor was screaming at him with what little voice he still possessed.

"You have a key!"

Victor began patting the back of his own neck, trying to mime out to Brad what he needed to say, while still pointing at him. Miraculously, Brad caught on quickly and began feeling the back of his own neck. His fingers wrapped around the key and he yanked it free. He just stared at it for a while, and then looked back at Victor, who was now indicating towards the tunnel.

Brad looked down toward where Victor was indicating, but he was distracted by the sight of the chain. Victor had not noticed before, but it was running out of the tunnel and right up the leg of Brad's own boxers. Victor now noticed it though, and watched as Brad groped himself, and then looked up at Victor, this time in absolute rage.

"What the fuck is this," he screamed, "what the fuck have you done to me!?"

Victor again shook his head in denial, and then began indicating toward the tunnel. Brad looked toward it, then flipped Victor off. He turned his back to Victor, noticed the door, and then ran up to try the handle. It was of course, locked.

Victor picked up the chain and began shaking it to get Brad's attention. Brad spun around, his hands locking around his end of the chain. They recoiled quickly, and for the first time, Victor noticed that unlike his end of the chain, Brad's was lined with small, needle-like barbs. Victor stopped jostling it, and again pointed to the tunnel. Brad looked toward it, then at Victor, and then got down to look in the tunnel. Victor was about to follow suit when Brad shot back to his feet screaming denials.

"No way! No fucking way! No way!"

Victor's breathing became rapid as Brad began to pound on the glass.

"Get me the fuck out of here," he screamed.

Victor held up his hands, trying to calm Brad down. Brad finally stopped panicking and looked at Victor, watching as the beast of a man tried to communicate with him.

"You have to come out through the tunnel," Victor said as slowly as he could, hoping Brad would understand both his miming and his lips, "the key is to a door out here."

Brad started shaking his head in refusal. Victor put his hands together as if in prayer and began pleading with his former client to comply.

"Please," he blubbered, "Pleeeease!"

Brad went over to the tunnel again. Victor followed suit, kneeling down to look through. Slowly, Brad reached a tentative hand inside trying to find a space clear of sharp obstruction. He failed in his attempt, and shot back up after slicing through his palm. He stared at the wound as blood trickled from it, and then looked at Victor, shaking his head. He marched back over to the door of his cell, and began pounding on it, wailing for freedom.

Victor's expression changed from desperation to a cruel snarl. He picked up the chain and began pulling on it, trying to drag Brad over to and through the tunnel. Brad shot around grabbing the chain, but letting go as the small metal teeth again bit into his flesh. Victor pulled with all the strength he had and Brad ran over to the tunnel to allow himself some slack. He reached in, trying to grab the chain where it hadn't been modified, but to no avail. The teeth ran on far beyond his reach. As he felt the pull again, he grabbed once more for the chain, crying out in anguish as he tried desperately to hold on despite the pain. Victor was pulling for all he could.

"You're coming out of there whether you want to or not," he yelled angrily, "I want that fucking key!"

Brad continued to hold on, determined to win this grisly tug of war. His scream became louder as the anguish inflicted by the toothed chain increased. Victor let out a loud cry and gave the chain one last good yank. It suddenly flew out from the tunnel, and Victor fell over. Brad's cry became a high pitched wail. Victor grabbed the chain and pulled it through gently as his hands found the teeth. On the end he found that the final link had been attached to several O-rings that were now covered in blood. He looked back toward Brad, but could only see his head, his eyes looked close to bulging out of there sockets as he continued to scream. And then Victor understood. He understood why Brad wouldn't stop screaming, and what the note had meant.

The O-rings must've been pierced through his genitals. Victor had just castrated Brad.

Although Victor couldn't see it, he could imagine the spurts of blood coming from the freshly ripped arteries in Brad's groin. With that kind of a wound, it wouldn't take him long to bleed to death.

Victor just stood there, feeling numb. He tried to figure out what to do. He couldn't fit in the tunnel, it was to narrow. He wanted that key. He wanted to go back to his home, back to his life. He just wanted this to be over. He slumped to the ground, his back against the original wall of the nursery. Brad's screams were dying down now. He'd be dead soon, and in no position to help Victor. Not knowing what else to do, Victor just sat there listening to the death throes of his former client.

IV

Time passed. How much, Victor couldn't say. He hadn't been asleep, but he also hadn't been conscious. He'd allowed his mind to wander for some time. He'd contemplated his past, his present, and his future, but still found himself here, in this awful place. Away from his life of opulence and luxury, away from the cushy life he'd paid for with the suffering of countless innocents. His most recent client had gone silent some time ago, and there was no other door in this room except the one he'd come in. Now he stared at that door. Wondering what more he'd have to endure in order to earn his freedom from this hell. How many more "tests" did his captor have in store for him? This last one hadn't been so bad. He hadn't had to torture himself at all. He looked down at his form, a body he barely recognized as his own. The slashes, the bloodstains, the remnants of the cesspool, the strange device shackled to his ankle, he'd endured so much in so little time. He thought about the tests he'd had to endure.

And then his thoughts paused.

"Wait a moment," he said to himself. His face twisted into one of curious contemplation. Then he looked at the door and smiled with a realization that filled him for the first time with hope. It had suddenly occurred to him that all these tests had one thing in common. He hadn't had to go along with them to survive.

First there was the chair. And Jigsaw had even admitted that he could've escaped without causing himself grievous injury, hadn't he? There was no toxin, and Jigsaw had said that he might have been able to break the restraints. Then it was Natalie. She was the only one who'd been hurt there. If he hadn't dove into that filthy pool, he'd have been in exactly the same position he was in now. So no harm there if he'd refused to play. And this last test, with Brad. He had played and he hadn't even gotten hurt. And if he had refused, and just walked out the door, once again, it would be no different for him. Each test was a chance at a shortcut out of this place. But if he refused, the he'd have to reach the end eventually, only this way, he wouldn't have to suffer anymore of Jigsaw's twisted games. Steeled by his realization Victor stood defiantly.

"I'm not playing you're games anymore," he shouted out to the empty room, his thick Russian accent coming out raspy and half sobbing. "Do you hear me? I know who you are! I know what you do! They say you seek to teach others the value of life. Well I do value my life! And I'm not going to be your little bitch, any more!"

That said, he mustered his conviction and stormed out of the nursery. He looked down the hall, the way he'd come, and then looked the other way. Before he'd thought of it as the way to his next trial. Now he thought of it as the way out. He marched down the corridor, looking at the doors, looking for the messages. At the end of the hall, he finally found it. And once again, he had to smile, as this message was not in any way cryptic or confusing. It was, in fact, the message he'd wanted to find more than anything.

FINAL TEST

This was it. All he had to do was get through whatever was in there, and he was home free. Back to his life of comfort and indulgence. And back to where he had connections, resources, and everything he would need to find the bastard who'd put him in this place. Find him, and make him pay. Without even a trace of the hesitation he'd shown before, the trafficker pushed the doors open violently and walked in.

The cable attached to the door cracked as the pin on the other end of it snapped from its housing, starting the mechanism. A large clanging behind him caused Victor to turn around just in time to see a large steel gate come slamming home on the other side of the door, locking him in. He hadn't noticed it hanging from the ceiling before he'd walked in, but it didn't matter now. He was trapped. But that didn't mean he'd have to go along. Victor considered himself an intelligent man, a man of cunning and street smarts. He'd already figured out the secret to Jigsaw's test, and he'd figure out how to beat this one. As the dim lights flickered on, he turned to face his final test. And was stunned rigid by the sight that faced him.

It was impossible to tell what the room had been designed for, but it was big. And it was split right down the middle by a large steel gate, similar to the one that had just locked him in. And there, on the other side, were three people he knew only too well.

On his side of the gate, a simple podium stood with a tape recorder and a large black box. And too his right was a door with the word EXIT spray painted on it. Naturally, he rushed the door without thinking, and just as naturally, it didn't open. There was a dramatically large lock on it that he would never be able to bust through. It looked like it belonged on a bank vault, except that it was missing anything that resembled a keyhole.

Victor turned back to the podium and began walking toward it, deliberately averting his eyes from the three unconscious individuals on the other side of the bars. They were strapped by heavy metal restraints to what looked like gurneys, reminding him of his first test. And they each had devices on their ankles exactly like his. He took the recorder, and contemplated. He finally decided that the best way around this test was to have what information he could. Sneering slightly at the thought of having to entertain Jigsaw for even a moment longer, he pressed play.

"Hello Victor. If you're hearing this, then you failed to coax Brad to assist you in escaping. Have you learned from that experience? Have you learned anything here tonight? You'd better hope so. Because if you haven't, you cannot possibly pass your final test. To begin, open the box."

Victor did as he was told. And what awaited him inside the box was the absolute last thing he expected to find.

"You'll probably recognize this gun, Victor. It's the same one you had on you when I first brought you here. It's still loaded. And it is not so much the key to your release, but to your salvation.

On the other side of that cage are the three people that comprise the only family you have. Your wife, Anya, your Brother Dimitri, and your mother, Susan. They are all heavily sedated and have been ever since they were brought in. You'll notice that on there ankles are shackles like the one on yours. You've probably been wondering what it is. It's a life monitor, Victor. And it's tied in via radio frequency to the restraints holding your family in place, and to the door leading to freedom. If yours had flat lined, they would've been released, and the door leading out would've unlocked. For your final test, you're going to have to decide between your life, and the lives of those who, as far as I can tell, are the only people you actually care about. But be warned; only one of their monitors is real. The other two are fakes. You can either take the lives of those you love to save your own worthless hide, or you can choose salvation, and free them with your own sacrifice. Have you learned the value of life, Victor? Can you make the ultimate sacrifice and find redemption? Live or die, make the choice."

And with that, the last tape stopped playing. He rewound it and played it again, unable to believe what he'd just heard. To pass the test, he'd have to shoot himself? This was a joke! It completely defied all reason. If he failed, he would live, but if he passed, he'd die. All his resolve faded away to give way to absolute horror. He looked over at his family, locked to the gurneys stood upright, looking like some sort of arcane shooting gallery. His head turned back and forth between the door and his family. Finally he decided.

He couldn't do it. He couldn't let them die like this. He couldn't be the one to take there lives. He began trembling as he realized what he had to do. The gun slowly raised, and the muzzle came to rest on his temple. He began crying. His hand shook violently as he tried to find the resolve to pull the trigger. He looked at his family members and started screaming. He wanted them to wake up. To see what was happening, what he was about to do for them. But they just stood there, heads slumped down over the neck restraints. They refused to wake up. Refused to acknowledge his great gesture. Victor started feeling angry, cheated, and then he stopped yelling. And his expression changed to one of hatred.

Jigsaw had failed. Failed to instill compassion, empathy or respect for the life of others. Victor was what he was. He was a monster who felt no responsibility for anything he'd done, or what he was about to do. After all, he wasn't the one who'd put his family here. Jigsaw had. He had no choice. The gun came up to point directly at his wife. Anya had been one of the first women he'd captured, and one of the prettiest. He'd decided he wanted her for himself, and had taken her as his bride. She'd gone along, rather than endure the alternative. And now she'd serve him once more.

The silencer had been removed, and the gunshot rang out deafeningly in the room. Victor was reward by a bloom of blood coming from Anya's chest. He looked back over at the door. Still locked. He looked back over, this time at his mother. The woman who'd brought him into the world. The woman who'd slapped him, and then disowned him when she'd discovered what he did and what he was. She'd spat in his face and renounced him, saying she wished she'd killed him when he was born. So he stuck her in a lousy nursing home. A place he knew to be cruel to the residents. The gun swung over to point at her, and a thunderous boom resulted in a splatter of bodily fluid coming from her chest. But to no avail.

Victor looked at his brother, Dimitri. So, his monitor was the real one. The one tied into the door. The one that would send the signal that led to freedom. Victor and his brother had never been close. He was the good one. The one that mother had preferred. Dimitri didn't know what his brother was, and Victor had gone to great lengths to perpetuate that ignorance. Though he didn't like his brother, Victor had found Dimitri useable from time to time. And now he would be one last time.

"Goodbye, my brother," Victor said coldly. Then he pulled the trigger.

Once more the loud blast rang out, threatening to deafen Victor. His brother's chest erupted in a splash of bright crimson fluid. Before the sound of the gunshot could die down, Victor turned his back on his family and looked back over to the door. A few seconds later, there was a clanking of gears, and the lock disengaged. The door swung open casually, revealing patches of what looked like natural light. Victor smiled and began to walk through it. He paused to put the gun up in front of him, and then proceeded more slowly. The lights in the room he was in shut off. He guessed it was part of the device Jigsaw had put in here.

Victor walked into the room beyond and was rewarded with sunlight pouring in from windows high overhead. Sunlight that immediately shut off. His heart froze as he realized there was something very wrong here. He was shrouded in darkness, and he had the sudden feeling he wasn't alone. His eyes darted back and forth, and he began shooting wildly. The flashes lit up the room he was in, and Victor got the feeling that the room was round, cramped, and possessed an incredibly high ceiling.

Too soon, the flash of the muzzle was replaced by the clicking of the trigger being fired in futility. As the sound died down Victor was aware of his own ragged breathing. He tried to still it, to attune his senses to the darkness.

"But it's not fair," he cried out, "I won! I beat your lousy games!"

"No," A voice echoed out from the darkness answered, "you have failed."

Suddenly, Victor found himself pressed to the floor, as the weight of an unseen assailant knocked him over. Then a needle passed through the fatty tissue of his arm. Victor was suddenly dizzy as the sedative coursed its way through his veins. As the world of consciousness faded away, Victor heard the voice say one last thing. A message that would echo in his head until he awakened.

"You killed me."

V

Victor awoke slowly, his beady eyes trying desperately to find their focus. As the fog lifted from his mind, the moment of panic that had preceded his drug-induced slumber re-instilled itself, and Victor tried to lurch forward, away from the perceived danger. He was stopped short by the shackles around each of his wrists. Feeling his way around in the dark, he discovered that the shackles were connected to thick iron chains, which were anchored to the dirt-laden floor. Suddenly, a voice spoke out to him from the darkness.

"Hello, Victor. You're probably wondering where you are. You are locked in the last room you will ever see. The room you will die in."

"But I won," Victor yelled out. "I passed all your tests!"

"Did you, Victor," the voice went on. "Did you manage to learn what you were brought here to discover? Why don't we ask them?"

A light behind him cracked on, and for the first time, Victor got a good look at the room he was in. It was the observation room where surgeries used to be performed. He looked up and could barely make out the dome of glass above him, where once doctors and students had looked down to watch new procedures carried out. And like the people who had stood in this room before him, Victor could feel eyes upon him. He turned to see the source of the light, and was shocked senseless by the sight before him. He fell to his knees, unable to breathe.

The light was coming from the room beyond. The double doors that had once stood in the frame had been replaced with sturdy steel doors, one of which was open, and through which a too familiar figure looked at him through the iron bars on his side of the doorway.

As Victor looked at her, trying to comprehend the sight before him, his mind went back, and remembered something he'd heard on one of the tapes. An innocuous comment that now seemed so much more.

_"I've taken away your ability to harm others."_

And that somehow was the case. For now he looked into the scornful eyes of Natalie, the woman he'd watched die in that chute. The woman who he'd crawled into vile filth to save. She didn't seem to have a scratch on her. Victor could barely breathe as he pointed at her.

"You," he asked, "you did this to me?"

"Oh no, Victor," the voice went on, "she was as much a pawn in this game as you were. As were they."

Victors' eyes went wide as, from behind Natalie, his mother and wife came into view.

"How," he asked.

"I sure you're aware of the concept of illusion," The deep, throaty voice of his captor continued, "Everything you did here was based on that. Did you think you would be allowed to truly harm them more than you had? Did you think that this was all to teach you the value of your own life? Incorrect. That is what Jigsaw does… and we are not him!"

From above the lights from the observation dome came on. Victor looked up to find that he'd been right about feeling menacing eyes upon him. Ten hooded figures stood on the platform beyond the glass, looking down at him. One of them had a microphone. This was apparently the voice he'd been hearing, but this was not the one who removed his hood to reveal himself to Victor. The one to his right did. And once again, as Victor looked upon this man who was apparently responsible for his night of hell, his mind flashed back to something that had been said.

_"But you would've surely been disgusted and outraged by what he did to her."_

Those words echoed in Victor's mind as he looked up at the cruel smile of Brad Callo. And as he did, he could now understand what had happened.

_Victor pushed Natalie into the apartment of his new client and closed the door._

_"Enjoy," he said as the door closed._

_"I'm sure I will," Brad replied._

_After the door closed, Brad looked at the young girl left in his care. She refused to look at him. Her breathing was ragged, and she clutched her arms around herself, looking like a whipped animal. He reached out his hands to her and cupped her face, lifting her head until there eyes met._

_"Do not be afraid," he said softly. "I'm going to give you the chance to right this. The chance to strike back at your oppressor. And then I'm going to give you your freedom. But you must follow my instructions carefully. Can you do this?"_

His mind coming back to the present, Victor watched as Brad took the microphone.

"We are the Brotherhood of Jigsaw, Victor," he said. "And we are not here to teach anyone to value their own life. We are here to teach people like you to value others."

_"Can you learn compassion, mercy, and appreciation for the lives of others?"_

_"Have you learned the pain of your victims? Have you learned compassion?"_

_"THE SENSATION OF HELPLESSNESS"_

_"THE NECESSITY OF COMPASSION"_

_As the weights piled down on her, Natalie screamed, not only because she'd been told to, but also due to the mild hallucinogenic that had been administered to her. The hinged grate below her feet was giving way, but not fast enough. Her legs were beginning to slice open. Suddenly it did give way, as a spray of stage blood came up from below, covering the plastic in fake human remains. Two hood figures grabbed her. One covered her mouth, while the other injected a heavy sedative. She was unconscious before he even drew the needle back out…_

_Brad screamed out dramatically as the chain tore through the bag of stage blood attached to his groin, beneath his boxers. He dropped to the floor, making sure to stay close to the low wall so as to be out of eyesight of Victor. When the test subject finally left the room, Brad hauled himself to his feet, tore of the prosthetic scalp revealing his perfectly undamaged ears. He turned the unlocked doorknob and casually left his cell…_

_Victor fired. A blood spatter bullet, like the type used in plays, smacked into the chest of his unconscious wife. The low-powered round didn't even break the skin, but to Victor, looking on from that far away, it appeared that he had pierced her heart, and that her life fluid was spilling out. After shooting his other two family members, the member of the Brotherhood, watching through the hidden camera, pressed the button that unlocked the door…_

Victor could see it all now. How he'd been so duped. If he'd shot himself, it would've hurt. A lot. But he would have lived. And he would have been set free. But now he was here. Trapped by this maniac and his friends with no chance of escape.

"I'll get you for this," he wailed up at Brad. "I'll find you and when I do…"

"Victor," Brad interrupted his rant, "I'm not the one who did this to you. I merely helped. The one who orchestrated tonight's events is our newest recruit. Behold."

Brad pointed to the door where his family and Natalie had been standing. They were no longer there. In their place, with his hand on the open door, was the newest member of the brotherhood, and the man who'd planned and carried out the testing of his brother's humanity.

The lights shut off, and as he closed the door, Dimitri spoke the final words that Victor would ever hear.

"Test complete. You fail. Goodbye, my brother."

The door slammed shut, and the screaming began.

THE END


End file.
